MARCH
• The Sunshine Coast Regional District’s infrastructure committee recommended spending a further $350,000 on reservoir feasibility studies. They narrowed down the possible reservoir sites to four – two locations where open, engineered lake designs would work and two alpine lakes high in the Chapman watershed that could be dammed.
• Tristan McDougall, charged with threatening youths at the skate park near Chatelech Secondary School with a pellet gun, was sentenced to more than 300 days in jail and will be banned for life from owning or possessing firearms.
• Sierra Club BC joined Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) in its campaign to save a cutblock in the Dakota Valley that they say is home to “the oldest living trees in Canada.” The BC Timber Sales (BCTS) cutblock, located 9.5 kilometres from Roberts Creek on Mount Elphinstone, is scheduled for auction in spring 2020. The two groups are calling on the provincial government to direct BCTS to cancel the sale.
• Directors on the SCRD’s infrastructure committee recommended changes to arena operations that would see ice remain in the arena in Sechelt until April 30, and until the end of May starting in 2020. The recommendations also included starting the ice season in Gibsons in August.
• Two-time Olympic silver medalist Patrick Chan performed two programs on the Sunshine Coast on March 9. Chan said it was a “huge honour” to be asked to appear as a performer rather than in a competitive capacity.
• Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth agreed to another extension of the state of local emergency in the Seawatch neighbourhood.
• Efforts were underway to move forward with a hotel development at Blue Ocean Golf Club. The hotel would consist of two four-storey buildings with a total of 140 rooms. One complex would contain a gym, an events centre, and a spa.
• Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) directors voted to move ahead with the recommendation made by consultants to convert the existing emergency planning coordinator role into a manager of protective services position. Another part-time emergency planning support role would be created that would be exclusively funded through the emergency planning service.
• Sechelt council gave the go-ahead to draft a zoning bylaw for a mixed-use commercial and residential development on Field Road in Wilson Creek. The proposed Evolve development would include low-density, multi-family housing with a combination of duplexes, fourplexes and townhouses and mixed-use commercial-residential units on currently vacant property.
• Plans were in the works to convert the site of the former RCMP detachment in Gibsons into a 40-unit supportive housing complex. The federal government transferred the $638,000 property in the 700 block of School Road to the Town of Gibsons for one dollar through the Surplus Federal Real Property for Homelessness Initiative. BC Housing would put forward about $14 million in capital funding and provide $1 million in annual operating funding.
• The province reaffirmed its commitment to fund the next phase of the Lions Housing Society’s Greenecourt project, the 104-unit Arbutus building that will replace the hall and remaining cottages on the Ocean Avenue property. The $10.4 million from BC Housing was formally announced March 13 at the Lions Hall on the Greenecourt site in downtown Sechelt.
• Rita Poulsen was recognized for her accomplishments by the BC Teachers’ Federation. Poulsen teaches she shashishalhem to almost 200 students between kindergarten and Grade 12 at Chatelech Secondary School and Kinnikinnick Elementary School.
• Janette Loveys left the position of CAO of the Sunshine Coast Regional District on March 14. Loveys, who served as chief administrative officer since September 2015, will be taking the position of city manager in Brockville, Ont., in May. Angie Legault, chief legislative officer, was appointed as acting CAO, effective immediately and until the board found a replacement.
• Hundreds of students from elementary and high schools across the Sunshine Coast protested for action on climate change at the Davis Bay Pier on March 15. The strike was one of thousands that took place in more than 100 countries.
• Raven’s Cry Theatre owners Doug and Deb Proby announced that after 22 years of profitability, they had sold the business. Christopher August and his aunt Jessie August took over ownership on March 15.
• The Sechelt weather station was among more than 30 across the province that recorded record high temperatures in March. Sechelt reached a high of 18 degrees on March 18. The previous record was 13.2 in 2005.
• Cowrie Street in downtown Sechelt was closed for part of the day March 18 while crews installed a rainbow crosswalk in the middle of the block between Inlet and Trail avenues.
• The Queen of Surrey hit the Stormaway dock while pulling into Langdale on March 26, leaving 285 passengers stranded on board for 10 hours as crews worked to free the ship. The Surrey, which had just returned to service March 24 after a refit, was on its 7:30 a.m. run from Horseshoe Bay when, according to BC Ferries, “the vessel … came into contact with the end of the marine lead.” The ferry was eventually freed just after 6 p.m.
• A petition with 6,400 signatures requesting a bypass and highway safety improvements was presented to Transportation Minister Claire Trevena by MLA Nicholas Simons members of the highway advocacy group SC101 on March 27.
• Provincial court judge Steven Merrick sentenced a former cab driver to 90 days under house arrest for sexual assault, calling the crime a “violation of the trust the community has in taxi drivers.” Ronnie Eheler of Sechelt was charged in November 2017 with two counts of sexual assault as a result of an incident in late 2014 and a second, involving a different victim, in the summer of 2017.
• Sechelt’s Seawatch neighbourhood remained behind locked gates after residents were evacuated on Feb. 15 because of the ongoing threat of sinkholes. There was still no word on whether temporary access would be possible to retrieve possessions residents had to leave behind.
• Sechelt council approved a three-year renewal of the district’s agreement with the Coasters Car Club for the use of Hackett Park and Cowrie Street for its annual Sleepy Hollow Rod Run and Show and Shine.
APRIL
• The Nicholas Sonntag Marine Education Centre held its second Animal Release Day at Armours Beach on April 1, inviting the public to release aquatic invertebrates that had spent months at the aquarium located at Gibsons Public Market. Outriggers from the Gibsons Paddle Club helped transport the specimens to the appropriate depths.
• Evelyn (Eve) Corlett of Gibsons was honoured with a Community Achievement Award by the British Columbia Achievement Foundation, announced on April 1.
• The organizing committee behind Sea Cavalcade announced it was cancelling the event after 50 years. Gibsons Mayor Bill Beamish offered the Town’s help to organize a “transition” event in the summer.
• Tree removal began at Gospel Rock as developer Green-lane Homes prepared to build roads into the area and clear its first building site. The Town of Gibsons was working with the developers to “install storm water management, and erosion and sediment control measures.”
• Kwentens ?e te sinkwu (Guardian of the Sea) was the new name given to the southern resident killer whale formerly known as J34. Four years after the orca’s body was recovered from the waters off the Sunshine Coast, its skeletal reconstruction was displayed at the shíshálh Nation’s tems swiya Museum. Weighing 450 pounds and approximately 22 feet (6.7 metres) long, the skeleton is all that’s left of the large male orca that swam with his pod in Georgia Strait. “It’s amazing to see,” said museum curator ch’elkwilwet Raquel Joe.
• A Sunshine Coast cab driver was given a 90-day conditional sentence for sexual assault against a female passenger – the second such case involving a local cab driver. John Podger, 61, was found guilty last October on one count of sexual assault related to an incident in August 2017.
• The new supportive housing complex on Hightide Avenue in Sechelt would be move-in ready later in April, providing homes for 40 people – all from the Sunshine Coast. “Places like this have a huge impact on our communities. Through these homes people will have the dignity of a roof, a door, a bedroom – all the facilities they’ll need,” said Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons at an April 5 preview of the facility. The project is a partnership between BC Housing, which owns the land, Vancouver Coastal Health and RainCity Housing, which will manage the building and coordinate the support services.
• Sechelt council backed a liquor licence change for The Bricker Cider Company, despite hearing a lot of opposition from some in the neighbourhood. Bricker, located at 6642 Norwest Bay Rd., applied to the Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch for a lounge endorsement.
• A unique recipe earned Roberts Creek’s Bruinwood Estate Distillery the Audience Choice Award for best liqueur at the BC Distilled Spirits Festival, held April 6 in Vancouver and featuring 40 of the province’s leading distilleries. The winning spirit from Bruinwood was their Advocaat, a rich mix of cream, egg, sugar and vodka that Jeff Barringer of Bruinwood spent months developing.
• Sechelt council adopted a policy for dealing with applications for non-medical cannabis retailing. Four shops that pre-date legalization were operating under temporary use permits in the district to give the owners time to pursue provincial approval.
• Sunshine Coast School District No. 46 was the first-time recipient of the Youth Work in Trades Performance Award recognizing its apprenticeship program, given by the Industry Training Authority (ITA). The award includes $5,000 in funding.
• Gibsons council voted to move forward with amendments to the covenant covering the former Christenson property on Shaw Road to allow it to be used for not-for-profit housing that isn’t age restricted. Removing the words “for seniors” would allow a portion of the property to be used for a joint Town of Gibsons - Sunshine Coast Affordable Housing Society project.
• Sechelt mayor Darnelda Siegers said the district would not be making any further public comments about the situation at the Seawatch subdivision after being served notice of pending litigation by property owners. District officials met with public safety minister Mike Farnworth in Victoria “to explore options for the future of the Seawatch site and to discuss an appropriate level of provincial support.”
• MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones was in Gibsons April 17 to announce how some of the federal government’s ongoing investment of $33 million in British Columbia small craft harbours will be used by the Gibsons Landing Harbour Authority.
• Directors supported a motion for the Sunshine Coast Regional District to call an “immediate water emergency” at an infrastructure committee meeting on April 18. The motion was prompted in part because snowpack levels in the Chapman system remained below average, and because there wasn’t enough water in the Chapman system to get through a summer drought without restrictions beyond Stage 2.
• The southwest baseball diamond at Hackett Park was the focus of public safety concerns over balls being thrown or hit out of the park. The District of Sechelt closed the diamond on April 22, and the league was replacing the backstop to mitigate the risk.
• Doreen Lee, described by those who knew her as a modest and driven volunteer, died on April 25 at the age of 92. Lee helped style some of Pender Harbour’s thriving community organizations – its library, its thrift store, its choir, women’s groups and more.
• The Queen of Surrey resumed sailings on the Langdale-Horseshoe Bay run April 26. The Surrey was out of service since a March 26 accident that left travellers stranded on board for more than 10 hours.
• SCRD directors unanimously voted to award a contract worth up to $524,540 to a local construction company to restore Granthams Hall in West Howe Sound, and staff expected “substantial completion” of the project by the end of 2019.
• Coast Reporter was named first for General Excellence in its circulation class at the British Columbia and Yukon Community Newsmedia Association’s 2019 Ma Murray Awards Gala on April 27.
• A lake about eight kilometres northwest of Sechelt known for years as Wormy Lake became officially Phare Lake. Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons made the announcement in Sechelt April 28. The name honours John Phare of Roberts Creek, who died while fighting the Old Sechelt Mine wildfire, which destroyed more than 400 hectares of forest in July 2015.
• About eight homes near Smuggler Cove were evacuated by RCMP and 50 others were put on alert after a controlled burn got out of control April 30, causing a forest fire estimated at 2.5 hectares (six acres) in size. Halfmoon Bay and Sechelt fire departments responded and BC Wildfire Service sent in two helicopters, a response officer and a three-person initial attack crew. The backyard fire did not have a permit and remains under investigation.
• Fire swept through a home in the 2700 block of Lower Road in Roberts Creek April 30. When Roberts Creek Fire Department crews arrived, they found the structure fully engulfed in flames, but everyone in the house was able to get out unharmed.
